Trump, Reality and the GOP A Pelosi House is becoming a real election possibility.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-reality-and-the-gop-1476143466
Paul Ryan told House Republicans Monday that he won’t defend Donald Trump’s campaign or his other behavior, and the Speaker advised Members to do what is best for their districts. This is not a new position so much as the latest restatement of a familiar strategy: to limit the 2016 electoral damage and preserve the GOP majority as a check on whoever wins the Presidency.
Defending down-ballot races isn’t the most inspiring goal, and it won’t satisfy those who want the moral validation of condemning Mr. Trump and all his works. But Republican leaders have real institutional obligations, and these include serving the country when their political choices are less than ideal.
At the current moment that means preventing Hillary Clinton from returning to Washington with a Democratic Senate and perhaps even House. One irony of this election is that as Mrs. Clinton has focused on disqualifying Mr. Trump’s character and temperament, she has also released about 112,000-odd words of little-noticed policy proposals that a Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi would be happy to rubber-stamp.
A new burst of liberal legislation could include a “public option” for ObamaCare that would be one more giant leap toward government-run health care. Energy from fossil fuels would become stranded assets. Government by and for the regulatory state would accelerate, and the Supreme Court would be lost to judicial conservatives for a generation. A final irony is that a Pelosi-Schumer Congress would readily pass the “amnesty” immigration bill that has animated Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
This prospect ought to concentrate Republican minds because House and Senate races are becoming more competitive as Mr. Trump slips. In the Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll published Monday, voters favored the generic Democratic ballot in Congress by seven points, 49% to 42%. Last month the spread was plus-three.
The same survey also shows the Trump predicament for GOP leaders. Some 67% of Republican voters said Congress should continue to support Mr. Trump, while 14% say they should call on him to drop out and 9% say they can’t support him personally. Mrs. Clinton is nonetheless widening her leads in swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio.
The question for Congressional Republicans is how to distance themselves from Mr. Trump when he says the indefensible without alienating his loyal core. Like it or not, a 45% plurality of GOP primary voters nominated Mr. Trump, and they knowingly put him on the ballot because they concluded that his unconventional political profile was a risk worth taking.
That choice may not have been wise, but the GOP can’t renounce democracy and win elections. A successful party must acknowledge the voters that Mr. Trump has inspired and the legitimate problems he has identified. These voters aren’t “irredeemable” in Mrs. Clinton’s phrase; most are ordinary Americans frustrated by their diminished economic prospects. CONTINUE AT SITE
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